by Craig Askham
“You going to fanny around all day looking at the mess that broken thermometer made?” Ben jumped, much to the amusement of Sorin Costache. The ginger hurricane, or Lee Casey as he had introduced himself in the elevator, was grinning up at him. “You miss your Mum, or something?”
Ben smiled, wondering if the outspoken little cockney was also a mind reader.
“Just waiting for the signal,” he lied. Lee nodded, and turned to encompass the rest of the group with his next words.
“You know the score, people.” He was loud, but his voice broke slightly as he said people, as if it couldn’t quite cope with the constant volume being thrust upon it. “From now on, we’re supposed to only call each other by our Vanguran names. Not gonna lie, I don’t really give a monkeys about all that. I couldn’t be arsed to think of a name, so I used an online name generator. If you don’t wish to call me Jokdrath Copperhead, I’m totally fine with that. Where we’re going, we won’t see many locals anyway so it doesn’t really matter, in my opinion. I’m here to see a dragon, and you lot are just a means to an end. You do exactly as I say, exactly when I say it, because – and this is important, so bloody listen – this dragon can kill you. For real. The people who pay my wages made it really clear to me that I have to make that little nugget of information really clear to you, so I’ll say it again. This dragon can kill you. It doesn’t care that the people who own most of Earth’s wealth have come to rub its belly and see if it shits a golden egg. Like the locals of Vangura, it doesn’t know or care that Earth exists. We’re just an appetiser, and dragons like their appetisers crispy. Have I made that clear enough, or do I need to go through any of it again?”
He stopped talking and raised his eyebrows, lifting his shoulders as he did so and leaving them as if they had frozen halfway through a shrug. It wasn’t a rhetorical question, apparently.
“Perfectly clear,” said Trescothick. Ben gave him the thumbs up, and Vykron just nodded. Talia followed suit, and Sorin made a shooing motion with one hand that Lee immediately took offence to.
“Don’t mug me off, mate.” It came out as a growl, to which Sorin shrugged.
“I don’t know what that means,” he said. “And we’re from the same country, apparently.”
“It means don’t treat him like an idiot, Sorin.” The words were out of Ben’s mouth before he could stop them, which happened a lot. “To be fair, though, I don’t think he quite grasps the enormity of that particular request.”
“Touché, Benjamin.”
Lee Casey, also known as Jokdrath Copperhead, freed his shoulders from their frozen shrug so that he could throw both hands into the air. He was no more than five and half feet of pure anger management issues, just the wrong side of fifty, and sweating like a pregnant nun in the woollen base layer he was wearing underneath his Robin Hood green leather, sleeves and collar poking out the edges because they were slightly too big. He looked bloated, his face deathly pale but with livid red blotches that clashed with his hair. His mouth opened and closed half a dozen times as he fought a silent battle with the chip on his shoulder, the prize being temporary control over what was obviously a very short temper.
“Perhaps we should just get moving…?” The suggestion came from Trescothick, spoken softly in his northern lilt. He took a step forward and placed a calming hand on Casey’s back. Ben didn’t think for a moment it would have the desired effect but, surprisingly, it did. The shorter man looked up at Trescothick, opened and closed his mouth a few more times, and then managed a curt nod. He placed the finger and thumb of his right hand onto the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. His anguished words, although directed at the northerner, were intended for all to hear.
“I don’t like him.”
“He’s not very likeable, Lee.” Again, Ben couldn’t help himself. He shook his head at Sorin, never taking his eyes off him. Sorin grinned back, smugness fully engaged once more. “He’s got the social skills of a wasp. Everyone says so, you mustn’t let it get to you. If I’m completely honest, I’m probably going to do us all a favour and feed him to that dragon, once we find it.”
Sorin arched an eyebrow in an unspoken challenge, looking slightly anonymous in his new choice of clothes. Like Ben, he had chosen several layers of linen undergarments for both the top and bottom half of his body. Also like Ben, he’d eased himself into soft leather trousers that felt like doeskin and had been treated for water resistance, then tucked into fur-lined boots that came to just under the knee. He was restricted to black in both the trousers and the boots, simply due to lack of choices in a size that fitted his lanky frame. His tunic was also black, made of heavy flax linen trimmed with grey fur. His swarthy complexion was somewhat lost amongst all the dark clothing, and he didn’t look too pleased about it. Although almost identical in design and material, at least Ben’s more average size had afforded him more choice as far as colour was concerned. He’d have actually preferred to wear black like Sorin, but wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of copying him completely. He’d gone for various shades of grey instead, including the furriest cloak he’d ever seen, working on the hopefully fair assumption that, as the Beijing portal crossed over to Vangura in the mountainous country of Seghir, throwing himself on the ground and disguising himself as a rock would be a good method of dragon defence should anything go drastically wrong. He’d mentally patted himself on the back for coming up with that nugget of common sense, and then shuddered from top to tail when he considered the potential consequences of disturbing a dragon, not to mention the various inadequacies of relying on a defence that merely involved him looking like a rock.
“…telling you now he needs to stop being a prick, I ain’t got the patience to deal with it. Seriously, mate.”
It took Ben a moment to realise Casey was speaking to him. Well, shouting, to be more accurate. He’d been so busy exchanging hateful looks with Sorin that he’d zoned everything else out. Thankfully, and unexpectedly, his nemesis looked away first.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Copperhead.” Sorin clomped forward in his heavy-soled boots, holding out a hand in Casey’s direction and hitting him with the full force of his charm. “I’ve been a total arse, and we’d no doubt be getting a lot more done if I was being less of one. I’m so excited at the prospect of seeing this dragon, you see, and also more than a little nervous. Unfortunately, the more I get nervous, the more I behave like, well…” He left the sentence unfinished, and Casey fell into the perfectly-baited trap.
“An arse,” he said, and Sorin gave him an apologetic smile.
“Exactly.”
Lee thought about things for a few seconds, during which time the blotchy patches on his face started to fade. Finally, he adopted a more conciliatory approach. Just as Sorin had engineered.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m brickin’ it myself, to be honest. I just want things to go smoothly, you know?”
“I know. Me too. Start again?”
Casey took the proffered hand and shook it. When he let go again, he clapped his hands together to capture everyone’s attention.
“Right then, let’s get a move on,” he said with a boyish grin splitting his lined face. “Who wants to go first?” Half a second later, Sorin’s hand shot into the air like a schoolboy desperate for the toilet. Casey shoved a finger in his face, the look on his face gleeful. “Well you can’t!”
With that, he took four strides over to the portal and launched himself into it, feet first, as if it was an actual plunge pool. As soon as his boots touched the mercury-like substance, it yanked the rest of him in as if gravity alone wouldn’t do a fast enough job. He disappeared as if he’d never been there, leaving not so much as a ripple across the metallic surface. The only thing that remained was the echo of his laughter in the cavernous room.
Six
The portal sucked Ben in the same way it had sucked in Lee Casey, Richard Trescothick, Sorin and Talia. He hadn’t been quite as childish as their excitable guide, but those few seconds bef
ore taking the plunge were very similar to the few seconds before jumping out of a plane, in that the adrenaline surge took over his whole body and plastered a stupid grin all over his face. It was better than skydiving, in fact, as there was no need for the restrictive oxygen mask and the stomach-in-mouth sensation of freefalling lasted longer. Most people didn’t like stepping into the portal, and took an age to pluck up the courage to make that leap. They were afraid of that falling sensation, the disorientation of all senses, and the sometimes crippling fear of being lost in the void until the end of time if something went wrong. Not Ben, though. He completely understood why people felt that way, it was just that he wasn’t put together the same as most. When the portal took him, the stupid grin only got wider. When all he could see was grey void, and all he could hear was the deafening sound of silence, he didn’t close his eyes and fight it, or scream just to have something to listen to; he opened his wider and looked around in case he saw God in there somewhere, and listened intently to that silence in case it imparted to him the meaning of life. He couldn’t feel his body, didn’t have a heartbeat, and certainly wasn’t drawing breath into his lungs. But he didn’t panic. He didn’t need to do any of those things in the void. He just needed to be. Have faith that the portal would spit him out the other side. Enjoy the ride until it did. And if it didn’t? Well, there were worse things to do than spend eternity floating around in here. Like ceasing to exist altogether. Now that was something to get afraid about.
So, he floated. Like a log on water, a leaf on the breeze, or some other cliché. There was no sense of time; the journey might have been instantaneous, or it might have been taking a thousand years. Ben didn’t care either way. He wondered if it was like being high on drugs, and immediately made a mental note to pack that little thought away in a box at the back of his head and forget about it. He shouldn’t be thinking things like that. In here, he was still himself. He’d never tried drugs, not even the old-fashioned inhaling kind, despite the reformed drug-addict spiel he’d told Too-Much. He didn’t disagree with it; he just knew that his addictive personality would make it game over the very first time. No, this was better. A natural high, better even than sex. Whoa. He immediately packed that thought away in a little box and placed it next to the one with the drugs in, never to be compared again. Maybe there was just a little too much time in here to over-analyse stuff, and think ridiculous thoughts.
The portal spat him out. Perhaps it was for the best. Suddenly he could feel his legs again, and his feet were standing on something solid. Oh yes, and there were his arms, floating somewhere above his head. Now it felt like he was underwater, only he could breathe with the lungs he could now feel once more. He shuffled his right foot forward, and it felt like he was fighting his way through treacle. The left foot came next, then the right again, and the left, until he started to build up some momentum. His head broke free of the mercury-like portal, the still water, and the grey void turned into dark gloom. For a moment, his nose was free but his mouth still submerged, but he could have breathed through either without issue. Then a hand reached out, a dark silhouette really, but a hand nonetheless. He lifted his right arm free of the portal and grasped it, and Richard Trescothick hauled him up and out of the pool. Ben could just make out that he was smiling, but it looked a little wan and the expression on his face, which he could only just make out, suggested he might be sick at any moment,
“You okay, Richard?” He searched his recent memory for the older man’s Vanguran name. “I mean, Vantalon?”
“I’m not going to chuck up over you, if that’s what you mean.”
“Thought didn’t cross my mind. Good to know, though.”
“Aye.” His breath fogged up in front of Ben’s face, which immediately reminded his body that they’d stepped into a very cold part of the world. He stepped forward, let go of Vantalon’s hand, and looked around him whilst they waited for Vykron to bring up the rear. He’d used the Beijing portal once or twice in the past, but was admittedly much more familiar with those in London, Los Angeles and Germany. There were others, but they tended to lead to places that weren’t interesting to visit. This, though, was undoubtedly the best way of arriving on-world. LA came out in Arunkumar, the island city to the south that served as the kingdom of Aneirin’s capital. The portal spat travellers, or gamers as they sometimes preferred to be called, out into a plain little room in a quaint little tavern nestled in the trees just outside the city. The tavern itself was wonderful, and served as a great meeting place before heading out into the big wide world. The room with the portal in, however, was arguably a little dull. An inauspicious start to an exciting adventure. The London portal wasn’t much better, transporting gamers to a mightily unimpressive room full of damaged mirrors in an abandoned warehouse on the Aneiri mainland, in the city of Sheniwar. It was a better option than LA for those wanting to get to that big wide world a little quicker, but it had less Stillwater infrastructure than Arunkumar. It was a little less touristy, Ben supposed. It depended what kind of adventure a gamer was after; at least, that was the widely accepted notion.
This, however, was something else. This was far more impressive than either of the other arrival spots. At least, Ben decided it would be as soon as his eyes adjusted and he could start making things out other than Vantalon’s nauseous face. They were in a large cavern, with the full range of stalactites and stalagmites managing to cover every surface around them. The walls stretched up and eventually converged high above them, forming a skylight through which the light of one of Vangura’s moons was trying to force its way. A not altogether sturdy looking spiral staircase had been carved of wood and secured onto the icy rock floor, disappearing up through that skylight to a world that, judging by the high-pitched screaming of the wind that swirled down from above with greater ease than the moon, was in the middle of a nasty storm.
“I shit on your mother!”
As one, everyone turned to see Vykron emerging from the portal. He was gasping for breath, and Ben suspected the interesting turn of phrase had been spluttered in whatever his native tongue was. Thankfully, or perhaps not so thankfully in this particular situation, the implants buried in each of their arms adjusted what they heard so that they could understand what each other, and more importantly the locals of this planet, were saying. And vice versa, of course.
“Please don’t,” said Jokdrath Copperhead. Nope. Lee Casey. No matter how hard Ben tried, he just couldn’t think of him as a Jokdrath Copperhead. Trescothick as Vantalon? Not a problem. Talia as Ailat? More of a stretch considering he called out Talia in the throes of passion, not Ailat, which was just her actual name spelt backwards anyway. Not exactly imaginative. Correction; he used to call her name out in the throes of passion. Those days were gone now, and he was going to have to try harder to remember that. In any case, at a push he could probably remember to think of her as Ailat. Lee Casey as Jokdrath Copperhead, though? Not a hope in hell. He was just going to have to continue thinking of him as Casey, and try really hard to avoid ever having to say his Vanguran name out loud.
Ben turned and, following the correct Stillwater etiquette, offered Vykron his hand. Unexpectedly the Russian, although Ben was still guessing at his nationality, batted his hand away with an angry growl. Ben shrugged, imagining him in an expensive suit instead of his leathers, and coming to the conclusion he looked a lot like a gangster. Bratva, maybe? He certainly wasn’t going to make a big deal of the older man’s rudeness, just in case.